After a period of silence, I said. "Have I told you, I hate you?"

"You tell me every year," The witch retorted.

We were sitting on a fishing boat - not a massive one, but big enough to easily carry us and our fishing rods. The colonists here in their floating houses hadn't named the planet yet; they'd been here for six years, and names came and went as did the people, finding it to be a dull world of water and fish. Now it was just a fishing outpost.

"In fact, you've been telling me for the past six-million years," The witch continued. "You need to get a better hobby."

I shrugged. "I actually like doing it. One day, you'll find a way to undo what you've done." I patted her on the back a little harder than I used to. "I believe in you."

She didn't say anything to that. For the first two-hundred years it had been Hell, watching my loved ones come and go, rot away into the earth, until mankind began to step out toward the rest of the Solar System. By then, I had learnt that attachments only caused grief of the worst kind.

It had been night time that I set my family house ablaze, watching as my last link to my normal life crashed to the ground. I vanished before the fire service had arrived.

"I think I have something," The witch said, reeling back the string. Indeed she had gotten something. A blue fish the size of a human arm burst from the water, its purple and green fins flapping frantically. The witch threw it into the empty bucket. "And then you'll kill me, I suppose, once I've found a way?"

"Yes," I said calmly, watching the fish flap around helplessly, imagining it was the witch that had stolen everything from me. Once again, I suppressed any indication my blood was boiling. "And then I'll watch you die."